[NA] New Mac Mini

[FastEddieB]

I've been a Mac user since about 1985 when I bought my first 128k Macintosh. Since then, I've owned maybe a half dozen Macs. Most recent has been a 2014 Mac Mini, which replaced a MacBook Pro. It had a 2TB "Fusion" drive, which was 1TB SSD and 1TB HD, integrated to appear as one disk. Over the 10 years or so I've owned it, it's performed flawlessly, until recently it's hesitated a bit waking up from sleep.

I was pretty impressed with the new Mac Mini and decided to order one. It took a few weeks, but arrived on Dec 24. I ordered the base model, since my computing needs are pretty modest, but I did spring for 2TB of storage - more on that later.

I set it up Christmas day, choosing to use a Time Machine backup. That required a USB-C to HD cable, which I had the foresight to order. I also ordered a dongle to use older hardware, and a new Apple Extended keyboard with TouchID*. I was nervous, but the whole transfer was fairly seamless. At first it said it was going to take 21 hours to transfer the roughly 1TB of data and applications, but that stepped down to about 6 hours once it got rolling. Almost all of my preferences transferred just fine, and just a tiny bit of tweaking was required, such as getting DropBox to work on the new machine.

My setup has a 2TB external HD as a Time Machine backup, one monitor driven by the HDMI port on the back and one driven via the dongle attached to one of 3 Thunderbolt ports, also via HDMI.

Coming up on 2 weeks, and I'm favorably impressed so far.

Pro's:

1) Naturally a bit faster.
2) TouchID is handy when a password is needed, and for logging in.
3) My Apple Watch also signs me in if I'm wearing it.
4) I can now mirror my iPhone to the Mac Mini screen - though that seems of limited utility so far.
5) The tiny size makes it just a tad easier to travel with.

Con's:

1) Apple was a bit stingy with ports. No USB-A, which I guess I can understand - if you need one or more that's what dongles are for. Similarly, no SD card slots.
2) Price. At $599 the base model seems to be a screaming deal, albeit 256GB of storage. But Apple seriously overcharges for add'l storage - going to 2TB took the price to $1,399 (!). I researched options of using much cheaper external storage, but in the end I like the simplicity of having that much onboard storage, and amortized over the typical 10 years I seem to keep Macs, its not that bad.


*I had to Google the Model # of my old keyboard, and it turns out it's a Bondi Blue iMac keyboard from 1998! It was Apple's first USB keyboard and was still soldiering on without complaint!

 

[FastEddieB]

I bought a small "Pelican"-style case at Harbor Freight, and it can hold the Mac Mini, Time Machine HD, trackpad, dongle and misc cables.

Pretty handy. All I need when traveling to our GA house, where I have 2 monitors and a keyboard set up. For other traveling, I'll still need to pack a small monitor and a keyboard.

 

[AKiss20]

Apple seriously overcharges for add'l storage

That’s the understatement of the century. Their storage and RAM prices are on the order of 6x market rate for equivalent SSDs. Absolutely nuts. We are an all Apple house but their upgrade pricing drives me up a wall.

Can’t wait to get onto ARM though, both my personal and work MBPs are still Intel. Would kill for a M4 Pro in my work Mac. That single threaded performance is bonkers.

 

[GeorgeC]

I've heard good things about the new mini.

Can’t wait to get onto ARM though, both my personal and work MBPs are still Intel. Would kill for a M4 Pro in my work Mac. That single threaded performance is bonkers.

The fact that my M1 macbook air could run a modest LLM respectably well still boggles my mind. Admittedly, that's more a function of memory latency than CPU, but still; cpu-only inference on the intel machines at work was unusably slow. I never bother to bring a charger with me anymore. It only gets tepid when it's actually doing computational work, compared to uncomfortably hot with fans screaming like a banshee.

 

[murphey]

Our 3 primary classrooms are all MacMini. Turns out the university upgrades every 4 years, so we just bought 3 x 6 M4 units for the classrooms, another 4 for the student lab, and 12 for the primary lab. For the classrooms, 1 is used to run the 4 big monitors ("smart classroom") and the other 5 are at tables for the students to work in groups, same for the student lab. Of course we ordered BIG (thank you, Colorado tax payers) because I bought the M3 laptop and another instructor got an M4 mini so we could run timing tests - to justify the configurations, of course. Everyone has jumped on the bandwagon because now our student lab will support the Data Sciences group, the Machine Learning group and my classes can start on computer graphics not to mention the rest of the CS dept.

The Mx Macs have the AI "skeleton" software already built-in. I created an AI demo of 25,000 images of cats and dogs in less than 30 min. Toss any image into it, and it will come back with the probability of the image being a cat or dog (if you're not aware, that's all GenAI really is - probablilities). Picture of a horse returns an 87% probability it's a dog. Why? Because the system only knows about cats and dogs. I'll be loading more animals, buildings and vehicles before the semester begins.

Other skeletons available on the Mac - video, audio and text. All you gotta do is load the training material.

Even more goodies - we used to run our advanced computer organization/architecture class using ARM simulators for the assembly language part, then only talked about HPC (high performance computing). Because the Macs (and raspberry pi's!) are all ARM, it's going to be live! Plus the M4s have 10-16 cores (depending on model) we can teach how to create threaded applications - one thread per core.

 

[GeorgeC]

Bah, frameworks. Have the students implement it from scratch:
https://andrewkchan.dev/posts/yalm.html
https://github.com/karpathy/llm.c

MPI and LAPACK, taking care of business for 30 years

 

[mandm]

You can get a 1-2TB Samsung ssd for $80-120, using the new usb C wire (usb 3.0?) will be super fast. For portable devices, I’ll pay extra for storage as I don’t want to wait for the cloud or use an external device, but for something that sits on the counter, an external storage is also ok. 256gb is probably enough unless you do video editing. I have yet to fill up my laptop and I have an external sd card (there’s a port for that and it doesn’t stick out as a nuisance) but that external sd card does run slow and I’m not really happy with that. I doubt I’ll ever try to access those files anyway.

 

[mandm]

I guess in theory you could hook up an external ssd to your wireless router and host your own vpn server. But I’m not sure on the practically or speeds of that. It’s nice to have a vpn server for when you travel overseas, you can log on and it appears just like you are at home for streaming services, etc. It’s free and it won’t be flagged as a vpn either since there isn’t the masses using that IP address.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

The Apple Silicon Macs really were a pretty big leap forward in technology, and the price didn't go up at all. I'm running one of the earliest 15" MacBook Airs (M2) and with the exception of the ports and the fact that I needed a DisplayLink adapter to run enough monitors, it's as good as the Pro I had before. Battery life is so good that I have literally never used the power adapter - I have it plugged into a USB-C dock at home with all of my other stuff plugged into that, and the battery lasts long enough that it's never gotten fully discharged before I've been back at my desk.

Definitely hate the RAM & storage prices from Apple, but if you avoid the top tier it's not so bad.

 

[DaleB]

Though there are a couple of little minor things I find irritating about Apple’s approach to things, I have to say my M2 MacBook Air is head and shoulders above any Intel or AMD based laptop I’ve used recently. I run the laptop screen and two monitors via a cheap-ish Displaylink port box. It’s also played well with the Dell docks we were buying for work.

It’s too bad that the Mac Outlook client is somewhat brain damaged (though I no longer need to deal with that), and Apple’s use of some keyboard keys is nonstandard enough to be kind of a PITA, but it’s still my preferred travel choice.

 

[FastEddieB]

Here's a size comparison of the old vs the new Mac Mini:

 

[Lowflynjack]

Apple was a bit stingy with ports. No USB-A, which I guess I can understand - if you need one or more that's what dongles are for.

In my day job, I'm a Purchasing Manager at Flex. We build the Mac Pro, the desktop. I will say the USB-A is gone. Apple will never put one on a product again. Not only the USB-A, but the lightning cable as well. We recently switched all keyboards and mice over to USB-C. This is because the European Union passed legislation requiring all phones, tablets, and cameras sold in the EU to come with a USB-C connector.

 

[Bob Noel]

It’s too bad that the Mac Outlook client is somewhat brain damaged ...

you blame Apple for problems with an Outlook client?

 

[AKiss20]

and Apple’s use of some keyboard keys is nonstandard enough to be kind of a PITA

What do you mean by this?

 

[172andyou]

you blame Apple for problems with an Outlook client?

I didn't read any "blame" there. He just said it was too bad.

 

[DaleB]

you blame Apple for problems with an Outlook client?

Absolutely not. Totally a Microslop inflicted problem. It was, however, what kept me using the Windows laptop instead of the MacBook for three years at my last gig. As HMFIC of all IT, I had one of each -- and an iPad for good measure -- but the Windows laptop was my daily driver, mostly for that reason. And yes, I know the 365 web client is the same on all platforms. It sucks just as bad no matter what you're using.

What do you mean by this?

Oh, the backspace key incorrectly marked delete; the different combinations used for copy/paste, highlighting, and so on. It's different from Windows, Linux, even dumb terminals and typewriters if you go back that far. Not a show stopper, just an irritant - especially if you switch back and forth often, as I do.

 

[AKiss20]

Oh, the backspace key incorrectly marked delete; the different combinations used for copy/paste, highlighting, and so on. It's different from Windows, Linux, even dumb terminals and typewriters if you go back that far. Not a show stopper, just an irritant - especially

Having the command button for standard keyboard shortcuts is so nice if you work in the terminal frequently. That way CTRL can be used in the way Unix expects. It irritates me to no end that windows does not have a command button and hijacks CTRL for its shortcuts, makes any terminal work so irritating (that’s leaving aside the bat**** insane shell that is powershell or the basic windows command prompt).

 

[murphey]

Here's a size comparison of the old vs the new Mac Mini:

I've turned my old macmini into a settop. Since I've got a new one at the university, my personal M3 laptop works just fine. Candidly, I don't take a computer with me on vacation. I'll have the iPad so I can make travel changes if needed and the phone since tickets for everything are now on the phones. Since I'll be getting back home a few days before the new semester, I need to check email once in a while but that's it.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Absolutely not. Totally a Microslop inflicted problem. It was, however, what kept me using the Windows laptop instead of the MacBook for three years at my last gig.

Exactly as MS wanted, of course.

Oh, the backspace key incorrectly marked delete;

I never even noticed what was printed on the key until you said something. It's in the same spot no matter what you're using.

Besides, it's not backspace, it's back-delete. As opposed to forward delete.

the different combinations used for copy/paste,

The letters are all the same, it's just command instead of control, which is nice because the command key is closer. I suppose if you're used to different fingers than I am it could be more annoying, but... See the comments about unixy stuff above.

It's different from Windows, Linux, even dumb terminals and typewriters if you go back that far. Not a show stopper, just an irritant - especially if you switch back and forth often, as I do.

I mean, they're all different. What's "right"? (Whatever you started on, of course...)

Apple has done a lot to make Windows-y techniques work where possible just due to the huge number of people who have switched in the iPod/iPhone era. Things like resizing windows from any edge, for example, were specifically done to make former Windows users feel more at home. They even switched Safari's keyboard shortcuts for tab-switching to match the other browsers. At this point, if they haven't done something, there's probably a good reason for it, or it doesn't annoy enough switchers.

 

[DaleB]

Exactly as MS wanted, of course.

It worked.

We decided from the beginning to support both Windows and Mac in our corporate environment, because we had a large number of developers and some senior execs who insisted on Macs for their Unix underpinnings and of course the snob appeal. A fair percentage of our support tickets were from Mac users trying to figure out why they couldn't do certain things in Outlook. We steered them to the web client, but they were still ****ed about it and blamed us instead of Microsoft.

Managing Macs in a corporate environment was fun, if you enjoy a little BDSM. It's actually fairly easy if you just pony up the substantial license fees for Jamf (substantially escalating the operating cost of Macs). Kandji works OK as well, for what it does, and is quite a bit less expensive, but it lacked one or two capabilities that Jamf has that essentially rendered it unable to meet our regulatory and audit security requirements.

All in all, Macs made up about 25-30% of our laptop population and consumed about half our time and effort. I personally enjoyed it, though - it was a learning experience, and we got to do some pretty in-depth engineering trying to get the Macs in line with our security policies and requirements. I also got to try out some MacBooks without having to buy them myself. We had one Intel based MacBook Pro that I wouldn't want anyone stuck with -- what a dog. The M1/M2 machines, on the other hand, were pretty nice. When they laid off everyone in the US, I ended up keeping one simply because there was no way to return it - all of my guys who had managed the hardware, and the offices in which it was kept, were gone.

I never even noticed what was printed on the key until you said something. It's in the same spot no matter what you're using.

It's the lack of a delete key altogether that's irritating. And yes, I know Fn-Delete (globe-DEL on the Magic keyboard) makes it work according to its label. Even the larger Magic keyboard doesn't have a proper DEL key. Delete and backspace are two different things, and every keyboard (other than Apple) I've used in the past God-only-knows-how-many years have had both. So, when one is gone, it's an inconvenience.

 

[Bob Noel]

Managing Macs in a corporate environment was fun, if you enjoy a little BDSM.

snort. The company I worked for had a mix of macs and windoze computers.

The techs doing service calls for the windoze machines noticed that the techs doing service calls for mac users could do almost twice as many service calls in a day.

'nuff said.

 

[DaleB]

The techs doing service calls for the windoze machines noticed that the techs doing service calls for mac users could do almost twice as many service calls in a day.

'nuff said.

I also noticed the number of users dropping MacBooks down stairwells and other screen-killing stunts was about 3:1 versus the Windows laptops. I can’t say for sure why that was.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not anti-Mac or anti-Apple, not at all. I’m just aware of and willing to talk about the less perfect aspects, the same as Windows and Linux and Android and the rest.

 

[Bob Noel]

I also noticed the number of users dropping MacBooks down stairwells and other screen-killing stunts was about 3:1 versus the Windows laptops. I can’t say for sure why that was.

that's because the windoze laptop will die faster anyway. ;-)

I kid.

 

[DaleB]

that's because the windoze laptop will die faster anyway. ;-)

Depends. When I got on board we were spooling up from 10 employees to, eventually, over 200. This was in 2021, when you bought whatever hardware you could lay your grubby paws on. We had some Dell Vostros, which had more problems than anything else we bought. The Lenovos were pretty reliable, but literally nobody liked them - they couldn't say why, they just didn't like them. The HP 840s we eventually settled on were the best of the lot for reliability on the Windows side, I don't think any of them broke. The Macs -- several got dropped, a few got stolen, I don't recall one dying on its own. Apple doesn't sell a "budget" version of anything.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

We decided from the beginning to support both Windows and Mac in our corporate environment, because we had a large number of developers and some senior execs who insisted on Macs for their Unix underpinnings and of course the snob appeal. A fair percentage of our support tickets were from Mac users trying to figure out why they couldn't do certain things in Outlook. We steered them to the web client, but they were still ****ed about it and blamed us instead of Microsoft.

Mixed environments can be... Uh... "Fun." Luckily, the last job where I had general IT responsibilities, we made an all-Apple shop. A dozen or so Macs initially, adding a bunch more as we grew, and about triple that number of iPads. Phones were BYOD.

Funny story about that place: We were going to go Windows initially, but the CEO decided the evening of that decision that he wasn't so sure and so came to my desk the next morning and suggested that maybe Macs would work better for us, and what did I think? I enthusiastically agreed, and since he wasn't one to hem and haw whatsoever, two hours later I was walking out of the nearest Apple store with four bags overflowing with new MacBooks and accessories of various flavors. As I walked out the door, a woman looked at me and her jaw dropped, and she quietly said "Will you be my daddy?"

Managing Macs in a corporate environment was fun, if you enjoy a little BDSM. It's actually fairly easy if you just pony up the substantial license fees for Jamf (substantially escalating the operating cost of Macs).

I always thought JAMF was a bargain. Apple had worked closely with them for a while, and then switched to recommending Mosyle. We ended up switching too so that we could take advantage of some integrations with Apple programs.

All in all, Macs made up about 25-30% of our laptop population and consumed about half our time and effort.

Interesting. I've never heard of things going in that direction, though Macs are not quite as enterprise-focused as Windows and even where they may be equal or better in that regard, there are far fewer people who already know how to administer them in that environment.

I personally enjoyed it, though - it was a learning experience, and we got to do some pretty in-depth engineering trying to get the Macs in line with our security policies and requirements.

Always fun to solve a complicated tech problem!

It's the lack of a delete key altogether that's irritating. And yes, I know Fn-Delete (globe-DEL on the Magic keyboard) makes it work according to its label.

One of those things that goes WAY back.

Macintosh 128 keyboard, 1984:

IBM PC keyboard, 1981:

While the PC keyboard doesn't have the now-standard "six pack" cursor keys, you can see that there was a Del key (. on the numeric keypad) that could be accessed with a combination. The Mac keyboard didn't have it. In fact, if you look again - There are no arrow keys on the keyboard because Steve Jobs wanted to force people to use the mouse, which was quite an oddity at the time the Mac was introduced. Even when Apple introduced a keyboard with a numeric keyboard with the Mac Plus in January of 1986, it did not have the cursor six-pack and the arrow keys were at the lower right corner of the main section of the keyboard.

Finally, in March of 1987 - At the same time Apple finally added color to the Mac - they introduced the (optional) Apple Extended Keyboard which looks very familiar today:

I note here that even then, the keys were labeled "Delete" and "Del" - Never "Backspace". I also see that IBM didn't label their keyboards with the word "Backspace" until 1986.

Even the larger Magic keyboard doesn't have a proper DEL key.

I don't think I've ever seen anyone actually buy one of those, though... And the Magic Keyboard with Numeric Keypad does have all the keys one would expect.

I also noticed the number of users dropping MacBooks down stairwells and other screen-killing stunts was about 3:1 versus the Windows laptops. I can’t say for sure why that was.

Brushed aluminum is slippery?

Apple doesn't sell a "budget" version of anything.

Well, a "Budget" Mac is different from a "budget" PC. Apple does make lower-end Macs like the MacBook Air and Mac Mini, but a low-end Mac is a midrange PC. Apple has simply decided not to play in the low end of the market, to offer a premium experience, and to not compete solely on price in any of the markets in which they play.

That's also why Apple rakes in 80-90% of the profits in the smartphone industry in spite of their market share being under 20%. Samsung pretty much eats up the rest of the smartphone industry profits.

Just for fun, though, almost every time I buy a new machine, I like to configure an equivalent big-brand (Dell, HP, etc) machine just to see whether I'm actually getting an "expensive" machine. Every single time, the prices have been within $100, and usually the Mac is slightly cheaper. Apple just includes a lot of things that are optional on other platforms.

 

[asicer]

Apple doesn't sell a "budget" version of anything.

iPhone 16 Pro Max $1200
iPhone 16 Pro $1000
iPhone 16 $800
iPhone SE $400 <------ "budget"

 

[DaleB]

I always thought JAMF was a bargain.

That depends on what you're comparing it to. Our environment was 100% MS 365; we had E5 licenses for everyone - Windows and Mac. Management of Windows devices, including security -- thinks like requiring compliant devices and all -- cost zero extra dollars for all of the Windows devices. The Macs needed a completely separate product. It was trivially simple to add in Windows laptops we'd bought before we started dealing with vendors who put them in Autopilot for us and have them fully managed. Getting Macs we'd bought ad hoc into ABM... virtually impossible, and as I recall involved a device wipe.

About the time we were working to get the Macs managed, the VC money started running low... you can guess how that went. I'd bet they still have "risk accepted" exceptions to security policies for Macs, which are mostly used by developers and the top couple tiers of management... just exactly what you want in a bank, right?

There are no arrow keys on the keyboard because Steve Jobs wanted to force people to use the mouse

That right there encapsulates one of the gripes many people have had about Apple products in general. The apparent attitude of, "Do it our way, we know best and you're not too bright".

Brushed aluminum is slippery?

By and large, many of our Mac users were more... let's just say "non-technical". We could bundle in things like careless, spoiled, self-absorbed, and a couple others. Not all of them, and I don't intend that as commentary on Mac users in general by any means. The developers were by and large trouble-free, other than occasionally whining because we didn't buy them pairs of $5K monitors and $500 headsets to do web design. The execs, on the other hand... sheesh. And Brit execs, no less. They'll drop a MacBook and act like it was my guys' fault for not suspending gravity for them.

Well, a "Budget" Mac is different from a "budget" PC. Apple does make lower-end Macs like the MacBook Air and Mac Mini, but a low-end Mac is a midrange PC. Apple has simply decided not to play in the low end of the market, to offer a premium experience, and to not compete solely on price in any of the markets in which they play.

That's also why Apple rakes in 80-90% of the profits in the smartphone industry in spite of their market share being under 20%. Samsung pretty much eats up the rest of the smartphone industry profits.

Just for fun, though, almost every time I buy a new machine, I like to configure an equivalent big-brand (Dell, HP, etc) machine just to see whether I'm actually getting an "expensive" machine. Every single time, the prices have been within $100, and usually the Mac is slightly cheaper. Apple just includes a lot of things that are optional on other platforms.

Apple's "budget" version is more the baseline, with reduced capabilities or feature set but not quality. Look at other manufacturers' laptop product lines; you can find some really high end stuff there, as well as some real disposable crap. They offer varying levels of quality in addition to the feature set. Our Dell Vostros were crap compared to, say, a Dell XPS or Pro - or even the Latitude. That's the difference. That iPhone SE is smaller, slower, has less storage, fewer features, but the quality is every bit as good as the Pro Max.

As for cost, I ran the numbers too. The Mac hardware really wasn't much more expensive, if at all, than decent quality Windows laptops of equivalent performance. That's why we offered new hires a choice; we had standard device packages for both Windows and Mac.

 

[Anthem]

the new mac mini (and macbook pros) are really nice. I have recently switched back to the mac platform as I had to move off when they went exclusively off intel chips (still had a bunch of sysadmin programs that only worked on intel siliicon). Now essentially only one piece of software is left(SAP Crystal Reports) but since the m4 is pretty damn fast it runs intel apps in compatibility/translatation mode under Parallels.

But it feels good to be back on the mac OS. The windows, the customizations, the adjustability and performance is just a joy to come back to.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

iPhone 16 Pro Max $1200
iPhone 16 Pro $1000
iPhone 16 $800
iPhone SE $400 <------ "budget"

That's not "budget" as in missing features though. It's older, slower, and smaller and is as budget as Apple gets. It's still made of aluminum and glass, runs the latest iOS, has a Retina display, it's really not missing anything.

There are new Android phones for $100.

As @DaleB says:

That iPhone SE is smaller, slower, has less storage, fewer features, but the quality is every bit as good as the Pro Max.

 

[FastEddieB]

iPhone 16 Pro Max $1200

A bit off topic, but some carriers drastically reduce the cost of a new iPhone via trade-ins values of up to $1,000 for a relatively recent model iPhone.

I’m on a 15 Pro Max and Karen recently got a 16 Pro Max. With trade-ins, we’re each paying about $11/month for 36 months*. Even the 2TB Mini at $1,399 is a lot more palatable at $116.58/month for 12 months, interest free.

*Plus sales tax, paid up front. At Tennessee’s 9.25% rate, that’s not a small number.

 

[asicer]

That's not "budget" as in missing features though. It's older, slower, and smaller and is as budget as Apple gets. It's still made of aluminum and glass, runs the latest iOS, has a Retina display, it's really not missing anything.

Now you're just arguing semantics. If you want to say that Apple doesn't make junk, I'll keep quiet.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Now you're just arguing semantics. If you want to say that Apple doesn't make junk, I'll keep quiet.

Fair enough. The real point was that Apple doesn't play at the low end of the market where everyone competes on price, so whatever you want to call it, Apple will never be selling the cheapest smartphone.